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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28369491">A Novel Idea</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered/pseuds/DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered'>DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Art Therapy [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Warrior Nun (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 23:21:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,199</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28369491</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered/pseuds/DangersUntoldHardshipsUnnumbered</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ava reads some of her novel to Beatrice.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sister Beatrice/Ava Silva</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Art Therapy [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2077677</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>149</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Novel Idea</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>After a detour back at the bookshop, Ava and Beatrice make their way back up to the hotel room. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What were you stopping for?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, just a couple of things,” Ava says mysteriously. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They tumble through the hotel room door and into each other’s arms, kissing with warm lips that taste like wine and gingerbread. “Coats,” Ava mumbles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mm, coats,” Beatrice agrees. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They stop long enough to fumble with their buttons, pausing between each one to pepper kisses on each other’s faces before continuing to the next. But then they’re out of their coats and back in each other’s arms. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ava tugs Beatrice’s hand and pulls them to the side of the bed, and they sit on the edge of it, kissing passionately but in an unhurried way. Beatrice doesn’t want to rush through it, and neither, it seems, does Ava. “You kiss the same,” Ava murmurs, her hands curling around Beatrice’s shoulders, her thumb stroking absently at that same spot, the place where neck meets shoulder. “Like you’re just taking me in, just…” She trails off into a long, gentle kiss in which their tongues probe each other’s mouths with sweet slowness. “...absorbing me.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am,” Beatrice responds, lightly stroking Ava’s cheekbones with the pads of her fingers. “I always did imprint you, every time.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ava pulls back enough to look at Beatrice, and her eyes seem to hold within them a flickering warmth. “Maybe I imprinted you too, you know.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think so.” She tucks a few stray hairs behind Beatrice’s ear as she speaks. “I want you to see something.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Beatrice lifts an eyebrow. “I was hoping to see everything.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Listen, being sassy and suggestive is my job,” Ava objects before giving her another gentle kiss. “And don’t worry. I fully intend all that. But first, I want to share something with you. Something that’s actually part of the everything.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“All right.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Delighted, Ava says, “Okay. Get comfortable. Lean back. I just want to share something. A little something.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Beatrice kicks off her shoes and acquiesces to Ava’s request. She arranges the pillows against the headboard and reclines against them. Ava digs into her backpack and pulls out a large manila envelope. She slides a thick wad of paper out of it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Beatrice’s heart leaps. “Is that your book?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. I just want to read you a little bit. Is that okay?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good god, of course.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ava kicks her own shoes off and sits cross legged on the bed, near Beatrice’s knees. “Look, if you hate it, just tell me, okay?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m nothing if not honest with you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know.” Ava holds the manuscript, which is printed on white paper and held together with a fat butterfly clip, with a certain reverence. She flips it to the first page and reads: </span>
</p><p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>I’m sitting on the bus and I’m drawing with my finger in the condensation on the window. The glass is cold on my fingertip, and damp, and it reminds me of summer, glasses with iced lemonade, drunk in the shade of a friend’s yard. I’m drawing me, not that you’d know, because I can’t draw, not even if I using pencil and paper and not my fingertip on a cold, damp window. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>It’s supposed to be me, though maybe I’m the only one who’d be able to tell that. It’s my ponytail, and my dopey curlicue smile that I always wear because it makes life easier when you smile a lot. People think you’re dumb, but they’re nicer to you, in some ways. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>It doesn’t matter what the drawing is, though. It’ll be gone when the weather warms up, when the air dries up. It’ll be gone when someone big wearing a heavy sweater brushes up against the window. It’ll be gone when I rub it out with my own sleeve. Because I’m that impermanent. I’m a smiley stick figure drawn in a film of mist on a window. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>And I’m on my way to stand naked in front of a room full of strangers.</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>I’m not a stripper. Not that I judge anyone who makes their money like that, I just don’t want strangers touching me, even if it is to stuff money into my pants. And I’m really not good at pretending to be into someone if I’m not, and I think that’s kind of a requirement of the job. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>No, I’m an artist’s model today. At an art school across town from my user-friendly liberal arts college, and a handful other schools accessible by bus that happen to have art programs. It’s not a full-time job, but it’s a good supplemental income. I make ten dollars an hour in the bursar’s office and they knock off some of my tuition, but it’s still hard to live on. It’s nice to go stand there and not have to deal with anyone and walk out with a hundred bucks an hour later. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>It’s about the unsexiest naked job on earth. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>The way the students look at you is different from the way you’d normally look at a reasonably attractive young naked person if they were presented to you in any other circumstance. It’s a soft objectification, not sexual, but something else: you’re just lines and shapes to them. They’re busy sweating over whether the angle of your elbow is right. They’re not really concerned about whether your tits are great, they just want to make sure they’re not making the shadows underneath them too dark. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>I never really look at the drawings when I’m done. I’m not sure I want to see the results of amateurs sweating over my intimate details. The me that is on that page isn’t likely to be someone I recognize anyway. And she’s more permanent than my silly stick figure drawn on a window. I don’t want to preserve some random person’s vision of me in my own mind when I’m redrawing myself every other day. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>At least, that’s what I think. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>My therapist thinks I’m an untreated case of ADHD. I don’t know if he’s right or not. All I know is that I’ve taken a handful of comp lit classes, history, women’s studies, a marketing class during the five minutes when I thought the path to happiness was money and I should learn how to sell things. I’m a junior and I don’t know what I’m doing. I know things, but I don’t know how to knit them together into a narrative like you’re supposed to.</span>
    </em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p> </p><p>
  <span>Beatrice feels her eyes welling up. She had always known that Ava had felt unmoored when they’d met, but to feel it so intimately is something else. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I just wanted to read you that bit,” Ava says. “I just want you to really understand how far I’ve come from where we started.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know that there’s more,” Beatrice prompts. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, but a lot of it is sad. I don’t want to make you sad.” She flips through her pages for a moment. “Here’s something that’s not sad.”  She takes a breath and reads on. </span>
</p><p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>“Can I see?” I ask. Because for the first time, I want to. I want to know what she sees when she looks at me. The way she looks at me is different; it’s gentle, but it digs and seeks. It feels like she’s reading me underneath my skin, not just the blood vessels and muscles and bones, but the heart and soul too. Nobody has ever looked at me like that, and now I have the opportunity to see what she sees. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>“Of course,” she says, as if it’s nothing. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>But it’s not nothing. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>I’ve always had the gift and curse of being drawn to the most expensive item in the store without knowing it. I can always spot the most expensive car, the priciest sweater, the most sought-after shoes. I can never afford them, but I can always spot them. I saw the Alabama Shakes in a coffee shop one time about a year before they blew up and I knew they were going to be famous. I know what’s good, and what’s great. Beatrice is great. She’s going to be someone. Her work is going to matter. How do I know that? Because it already matters to me. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>When I look at the drawing, it’s seeing myself through her eyes. I don’t see a goofball with a hot body. I see a woman –not a girl, mind you, but a woman– serious, substantial, and filled with feeling. She hasn’t exaggerated anything, hasn’t underserved anything; it’s just balanced, honest. The contrast of the light and the dark strike a mood that I often feel but don’t think I should. I see someone pensive, someone who can’t stop thinking but doesn’t know where to point it sometimes. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>“Do you like it?” she asks, as if the answer could be anything but yes.</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>I want to ask her how she saw this in me, how she uncovered and laid it bare on her page. I don’t dare. It’s too much. “It’s amazing,” is all I can say. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>What I’m seeing, I realize, is respect. So much of it. I can’t tell if it’s because she views me as special or if this is just the way she approaches the world, with this kind of profound respect. Either way, it’s not a moment I’m likely to forget anytime soon. How often do you see that? </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>Boys tend to pick you apart in certain ways. They see you in terms of the bits of you that they like most, and what kind of pleasure they’re able to get from you. My therapist says that they get better about that as you get older, but the jury’s out on that. The ex-boyfriend, if he’s really in the moment, might say “Oh, God, you’re so hot,” when we’re in bed together on those rare occasions. But what does that mean to me? I don’t think I even know. Maybe he just doesn’t have the words to express what the drawings express. Or more likely, maybe he doesn’t see anything more than that.</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>I sit on the bus on the way home, staring at a poster advertising a travel agent. There are pictures of Africa, Europe, South America. Mexico looks beautiful; I read once about how many ancient sites there are, and beautiful gardens, and amazing museums. I think I’d like to go someday. But Paris sits among the pictures, the Eiffel Tower, like you see in most tourism photos, and I wonder about it. When you experience something, does it become part of you somehow? Do you absorb it into your soul and yourself? </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>And where has this artist been? What has she seen that allows her to look at me like she does? </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>I have a lot of cravings, they come and pass. I know this about myself. Right now, I’m craving something and I don’t know what. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p> </p><p>
  <span>Beatrice smiles as Ava stops reading, and looks up at her. “That early, you felt something?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. I didn’t know what it was. How could I? I had nothing to compare it to.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Beatrice stretches a hand out to Ava, inviting her closer. Her fingers brush against Ava’s cheek as she looks at her, marvels at who she’s become and how she’s gotten so much better at expressing herself. Ava’s smile in this moment feels as though it comes from someplace deep. It’s not the smirk she sees most often, Ava being funny to paper over the places where she hurts. It just looks like contentment. “Give me more,” Beatrice whispers. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ava leans into Beatrice’s touch for a moment, then flips through the pages and finds something else she wants to read: </span>
</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p> </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>I close the bathroom door and lean back against it. I can hear her outside in the living room, changing the music to something that I don’t recognize but that sounds like jazz. My heart shouldn’t be racing like this, but it is, and I have to deal with that. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>It’s not just my heart. It’s my whole body. A multitude of tiny, electrical twitches in all my muscles, and breathing that feels like work. My skin is alive with prickling hairs standing on end. This is excitement. It confuses me. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>I’ve done this a million times, stood naked in front of artists who were drawing me. Why is it different now, with her? Am I developing an exhibitionist streak? But if so, why now, and why only for her? </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>But I know, don’t I. Her drawings give me weight, depth, permanence. She looks at me with respect, regards me as an equal even if I’m not sure I am. She presumes intelligence in me. She sees beauty in what I am rather than what she wants me to be or thinks I am. Her passions are obvious, they’re like a burning star inside her, and when they’re directed at me, they’re focused through her eyes and they become this hot, bright point of light that moves slowly all over my skin. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>I’ve never experienced that with anyone else. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>God, am I wet? After a hesitation because I’m not sure I want to know the answer, I check. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>I am. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>This isn’t what it seems like, I tell myself. It’s just the weed making me horny. Leaning back against the door, I close my eyes, and think of sunsets in Europe while I relieve the ache as quietly as I can. Head still spinning from orgasm, my cheeks still flushed, I get dressed, wash my hands, pull myself together, and head back out to the living room. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p> </p><p>
  <span>Beatrice swallows. She takes one of Ava’s hands and kisses it. “Did you really do that?” she asks in a very low voice. The thought is surprisingly tantalizing. It adds new color to those memories. She wants to make more memories. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I did,” Ava responds. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Beatrice spends another few minutes, turning Ava’s hand over in hers, kissing the palm of it, taking each fingertip in her mouth and tasting it before moving on to the next. Ava sighs and closes her eyes, letting Beatrice take her soft, sensuous time with it before looking up and asking, “Do you want to hear more?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Beatrice nods. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ava flips a little further in and reads again: </span>
</p><p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>I contact the professors and ask if I can see any of the drawings done from sessions where I modeled. I need to answer a question: is this just what it is when someone with talent draws you? Am I making more out of it than it needs to be? </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>The answers come one by one, one after the other, over the space of the next day or so: hasty photos of student drawings of me in poses that I vaguely remember holding, some of them done better or worse, but none of them look like me. And none of them are as alive as hers, none of them show me parts of myself I didn’t offer but that she somehow saw anyway. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>I stop by and see her professor and make the same request. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>“Of course,” she says kindly. And she gestures over to a giant board where several of the drawings hang. Yes, all good, but only one feels honestly alive. I don’t even have to ask to know whose it is.</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>I laughed the day she complimented me as being “very good” at modeling because I never think of it as having any kind of talent to it. But I start to wonder; is she seeing these things because I’m offering them to her? Am I opening up and asking her to reflect myself back to me, without even meaning to or knowing I am? </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p> </p>
</blockquote><p>
  <span>Ava shifts closer to her. She sets the manuscript aside for a moment, tugs Beatrice’s sweater up a little, and kisses her bare stomach. Beatrice closes her eyes and dwells in the warmth of Ava’s mouth on her skin. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I drew what I saw,” she says, stroking Ava’s hair. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But nobody else saw what you did.” Ava’s kiss inches up Beatrice’s stomach. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And I saw what you showed me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It occurs to Beatrice that her foundational technical skill, her trained eye and excellent draftsmanship was precisely what allowed her to look at Ava in a way that sought to show all of her, her energy, her soul. Absent the need to fret over angles and shapes, she could see the person more clearly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We found each other at a time when we needed each other,” Ava mutters against her skin. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Give me more,” Beatrice urges. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ava sits up and looks at her, and now her smile becomes impish again. “Are you sure you can handle it?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>This gives Beatrice a pleasant little shiver. “I’ll do my best.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ava picks up the manuscript, lips twitching with anticipation and delight. </span>
</p><p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>When you grow up like I did, orphanages, foster homes, one place to the next, you’re always surrounded by people but never attaching yourself. You look out for yourself, mostly, because you’re the only one that’s going to be around when things change, and then change again, and then again. Maybe it’s selfish, but it’s also just a defensive stance. Relationships, even friendly ones, are held at arm’s length, easily acquired, easily abandoned. Everything is transactional, even when you become a teenager and start dating. You only consider the other party’s feelings as far as you need to, to make the current transaction go smoothly. You don’t bother to invest in taking a delight in them. You don’t let them matter too much. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>And yet here I am. On the phone, in the dark, listening to her voice like silk in my ear, and wanting, dying, to hear her letting go. Not because I owe her something. Not because I’m worried about being the only one getting off in quiet, whispered, panting tones and I need it to be fair. Not because I have to feel like I’m pulling my weight because I don’t want to owe her. No, it’s something else. It’s just wanting to know that she feels good, wanting to hear the sounds of her feeling good. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>I’ve been looking at her for a couple of weeks now. I’ve been staring at her, the focused look she has when she works. The way she holds back in my presence and then lets it all come tumbling out, in texts, on the phone. You don’t keep high walls like she does unless you’ve been hurt a lot. You don’t hesitate to show your whole self unless you’re afraid of being judged. I don’t know why, but I hate the idea that she’s been hurt, and that she feels she can’t show everything all at once. And I want her to feel good. So, so good. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>I don’t know how to say all this. I don’t know how to say that I want her to love herself because deserves to, and I can see she doesn’t. The best I can do is say, “I want to hear you come,” and when she does, with those thick, hard breaths and those soft little birdsong moans, it hits me everywhere. In the heart, in the guts, in the sex. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p> </p>
</blockquote><p>
  <span>“I always assumed those calls were just a safe way to explore what you felt for me without having to deal with it in reality,” Beatrice says, her voice small and quiet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They were, partly. But they were so much more.” Ava shifts closer and leans in, nuzzling against the side of Beatrice’s neck. “I didn’t have the words, then. I’ve had six months to really think about all of this, and…” She drops a soft kiss just below the hinge of Beatrice’s jaw. “...and that’s been enough time to process and understand. It’s been enough time for me to find the words.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ava’s hand settles on Beatrice’s shoulder, and her fingers creep in beneath the v-neck of her sweater. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“See,” she goes on, “you always had the words. You were able to tell me exactly how you felt about me, show me exactly what you saw in me, with your words. You were so clear in your feelings that you were able to talk to me and not say a single explicit thing and I’d still get wet as spring. Just the act of you showing me how you saw me was enough to do me in.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Beatrice takes Ava’s face between her hands and kisses her deeply.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That always confused me,” Beatrice confesses, winding Ava’s ponytail around her hand and pulling her closer.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It confused me too,” Ava chuckles. “Seeing myself through your eyes, understanding what you saw in me, it made me feel things for you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Beatrice pulls Ava’s hair tie out and lets her sandy-colored hair spill down her back. “You have words now,” she murmurs, tilting her head back and letting Ava kiss the side of her neck, then up the column of her throat. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sixty thousand of them,” Ava confirms. “A testament to what we are together.” She lays the paper aside and shifts herself to straddle Beatrice’s lap, then leans in to kiss her again. “I fell in love with you because of what you showed me about your heart, and what I meant to you. I had to find the words to show you everything in mine.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Beatrice slides her hands up the back of Ava’s shirt, running her palms along the smooth skin of her back. “Give me more,” she pleads, kissing the skin just above the neckline of Ava’s shirt. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ava obliges her, this time declining to read from the text, but simply embracing Beatrice, holding her tightly and cradling her head against her soft chest. “You were so serious, and I wanted to make you smile. You were so generous, and I wanted to give you something back. You were so brilliant, and I wanted to be part of that light. I wanted to shine with you. Those are things that nobody else has ever made me feel. When I finally touched you it was with the full knowledge it would end up the way it did, and I wanted that. Because I wanted to touch you for all the right reasons. Not because I wanted to get something out of it, but because I wanted to feel you. I wanted to know you that way.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Beatrice slides her hands up and does away with Ava’s shirt, tossing it somewhere on the floor. She looks up at her, those eyes that just seem to ache for her, and lays a long, gentle kiss at the lace edge of one of the cups of Ava’s bra. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I tried to imagine what that would be like, you know. Tried to imagine how you would make love to me, tried to imagine what you looked like with your clothes off. But none of it really satisfied me because I wanted something different from what I wanted before. Anytime I was with someone before that, it was because I wanted to get pleasure out of being with them. I could judge that their body would fit my body a certain way and that I could use their body to make myself feel good.” She rakes her fingers through Beatrice’s hair, leans forward, kisses her forehead. “But it was different with you. You were the most gifted, determined, gentle, reverent soul I had ever encountered in my life, and I wanted to use your body to make </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> feel good.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Beatrice wraps her arms around Ava and kisses her through her bra, rakes her teeth over her nipples through the thick fabric. “You stopped needing to protect yourself so that you could give selflessly to someone else.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Ava sighs, leaning into Beatrice’s kisses. “See, I love, </span>
  <em>
    <span>love</span>
  </em>
  <span> your pussy.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Beatrice moans softly when she says this. She wants to get them both out of the rest of their clothes right now. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But I love it because it lets me make you feel really good, it lets me give you orgasms followed by explosions of dopamine and endorphins, it lets me fill your body with warmth and love, it releases that wonderful chemical that lets us feel bonded to each other. It lets me show you everything I feel without having to use the words.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m rather enjoying your words,” Beatrice confesses, and her breathing hitches. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well that’s the thing,” Ava goes on, “I also learned from you that that’s not your only sexual organ. Your brain is a big, big one, and having the means to stimulate you that way became really important to me. I came to Paris wanting to write, for a lot of reasons, but one of them was so that I could tell you how I feel about you the way you’ve always been able to tell me.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Beatrice reaches around and unhooks Ava’s bra, tosses it aside, and buries her face between those generous breasts, kissing them, dragging her hands up Ava’s back. She’s greedy for everything, Ava’s whole body. She wants her, heart, mind, soul and sex. “I’ve missed these,” she mumbles, “perhaps more than I even wanted to admit.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ava kisses the top of Beatrice’s head and chuckles softly, relaxes into a posture that lets Beatrice take a nipple into her mouth and suck gently on it. “They’ve missed you, too.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The nipple is hard and a delight to feel against her tongue. Beatrice lets it go with a little pop and looks up at her. “You don’t mind? It doesn’t make you feel objectified?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ava looks at her fondly, as if she’s said something unbearably silly. “You couldn’t do that if you tried. You never have, not even when you were supposed to be. I know you love and value all of me.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you insist,” Beatrice says mischievously, “but you should know I am especially partial to them.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ava sighs happily as Beatrice licks her way around the nipple before sucking on it again. “I’ll live,” she retorts affectionately. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They remain this way, clinging together, their hips moving gently against each other, for a few minutes more. Beatrice feels a sense of having come home. She’s not a fool, and she knows that none of this means that they will be able to go forward together, not necessarily. But there’s a reason her attempts at dating were half-hearted. She doesn’t want to be wrapped around anyone’s half naked body except Ava’s. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She draws back and looks at Ava, runs gentle fingertips down her neck, down the center of her chest. “Even now, I remember every line, every curve, every valley and well and tendon of you. Better than the back of my hand, even.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ava strokes Beatrice’s cheek. She tugs Beatrice’s sweater up, and then slides it over her head. To her delight, she finds no bra underneath. “Didn’t want me to have to unwrap too much?” she teases. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Beatrice snorts, “because all of my lingerie choices are for your benefit.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ava scoots back on the mattress, and curls herself downward to place her mouth on one of Beatrice’s breasts, kissing it gently, with little strokes of her tongue in between. Beatrice shivers all over, surrenders herself to Ava’s affection. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mm, maybe not, but I kind of like to think this one was,” Ava purrs. She scoots further down and then stretches her legs out behind her on the mattress. Propped on her elbows, she kisses down Beatrice’s stomach and then stops, looking up at her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Give me more,” Beatrice urges. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ava closes her eyes, rests her cheek against Beatrice’s stomach, and sighs as Beatrice digs fingers into her hair, scratching gently at her scalp and behind her ears. Ava purrs, tenderly kisses her again and then lifts her head. “There’s this one bit I labored over an awful lot,” she says, “and I know it so well, I don’t need the manuscript to tell it to you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tell me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ava’s hands idly play at the sides of Beatrice’s ribcage as she looks up at her, and then from memory, begins to recite:</span>
</p><p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>And this is it, this is all. She came into my life as quietly as a star moving across the sky, but she has the gravity of a hundred planets, and in her presence all my particles scattered across the atmosphere are being drawn in. Here, in her arms, for this miraculous moment, I’m pulled together, a cohesive body, drawn across space that used to seem endless but isn’t now. I was dust, and now, pulled together so fast and so hard, I feel like a diamond. That’s what she’s giving me. Everything she is, the gravity that pulls me to her, also pulls all my pieces together into a self that feels whole. It’s not that she completes me. It’s that her mere existence demands that I complete myself. How else can we ever continue this dance, this delicate orbit? Such things need balance.</span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>There’s a disconnect, a filter, sometimes, between my mind and my mouth. My thoughts can be elegant and clear, but then they pass through the gap and what comes out is nothing like what it started out as. They break down, they disintegrate into something else. And the things I want to tell her, that I think I love her, that I’m grateful for her, that I want her to understand the wonder that she is, the searing neutron star that burns so hot it scares me with its beauty, none of it comes out. It falls apart. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>So I say what I know I can say: “Show me where to kiss you.” “Does this feel good?” “I want to make you come.” And I kiss and touch and stroke and study her, and I will until I learn how to fill her whole body with stars, a galaxy of them. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>Space is silent. It doesn’t need to announce itself with fanfares. It just is; it’s unending in its beauty. Our ancestors never stopped to wonder whether they deserved the stars in the sky, they were just grateful for them, loved them, worshipped them, assigned meaning to them and took guidance from them. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>
      <span>They are a fact of existence and a force of nature. And as I bury myself in her body, and nestle myself between her trembling thighs, I realize, so is love. </span>
    </em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p> </p><p>
  <span>“God, Ava,” is all Beatrice can muster in the immediate aftermath. Her eyes are closed and she feels Ava’s weight against the lower half of her body. The mind indeed is a sexual organ and words are the stimulation it craves and loves most. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s something about the chemistry in my brain,” Ava says in a soft, smoky voice. She unbuttons Beatrice’s trousers, tugs the zipper down, and kisses her just above the waistband of her low-riding cotton boy shorts. “I can’t just make things come out of my mouth a lot of the time. But if I write them down? It’s a different story. I can say things once I see them. And God, I had a lot to say to you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Beatrice can barely breathe. Ava is taking her time, dwelling on the pleasures that come with stimulating her mind and body at once. “I’m beginning to understand why I was able to get you so wound up with just words,” Beatrice says, her breath a little shallow. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course. It’s one thing to know how someone feels but to hear it said?” Ava tugs the zipper down a little more, and kisses Beatrice’s hip bone. “And said well? Yeah. That’s a different kind of turn-on.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re really trying hard to ruin me for any other girl,” Beatrice complains in a playful tone. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am what I am,” Ava responds. “It’s not like you haven’t ruined me for everyone else too.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Beatrice wants Ava, now, but also loves the way she’s stretching it all out, delivering her this foreplay of mind and heart. “I knew you had so much in you,” she sighs. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ava curls her fingers around the waistband of Beatrice’s trousers and gives a little tug. “Bet you didn’t know it was this much,” she teases. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Beatrice helpfully lifts her hips off the bed and Ava works her pants and underwear down her legs and then off. She stands up, shakes out of her own jeans, and then climbs back up onto the bed, laying her whole self down on top of Beatrice. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“In some way, I think I did,” Beatrice says, relaxing herself and wrapping her legs around Ava. The delight of her warm skin, the weight of her, is intoxicating. “The seed was there from the first.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ava kisses her deeply, with the confidence that comes from knowing that Beatrice is exactly who she belongs kissing. Their hips moving against each other become a gentle tide in the bed. “I’ve always loved you,” Ava murmurs. “Always.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Beatrice slides her hands down Ava’s back and grabs hold of her ass. “How am I supposed to let go of you after this?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know,” Ava pants, nipping at her bottom lip. “We’ll figure it out, just like we’ve been.” She nudges Beatrice’s head to the side, kisses down her jawline, up to her earlobe, and then slides the tip of her tongue around the shell of Beatrice’s ear. Beatrice moans softly. “See? I remember how you especially like that.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mm,” is all Beatrice can really manage as Ava does it again, teasing those nerves and sending hot shivers all the way down deep. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tell me,” Ava whispers. “Tell me what you want right now.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want you to fill me with stars,” Beatrice says. “I want you to shine with me.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ava rolls off to the left, and lying on her side, she slides her hand down Beatrice’s stomach, speaking softly as she slowly moves down. “I’m going to touch you now. I’m going to make love to you with my fingers first, but that’s not going to be the only way I do that tonight. But right now, I want to see your face, and I want to look in your eyes, and get lost in them while I’m making you feel my love, okay?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Beatrice nods. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The first touch of Ava’s fingers feel electric. She becomes aware now at how wet she is, how much her body was aching for this. She lets out a sigh, and tries not to close her eyes, because she wants to look at Ava. The affection in her eyes, Beatrice thinks, is enough to drown in. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She shifts onto her side, so that she can touch back. Ava, too, is so very warm and wet, her flesh so sensitive and ready to be attended to. Beatrice runs her fingers all over Ava’s sex, inside and out, and it’s beautiful. It’s warm. It’s love. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s just you,” Ava sighs as they lay kissing and stroking each other in the absurd, perfect four poster bed. “It’s only you. Nobody else has ever made me feel like this.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s because it’s real,” Beatrice sighs. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So real. Their fingers are coated with each other, their bodies are flooding for each other, their lips wet with each other’s kisses. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re so beautiful,” Ava moans, slipping a finger into Beatrice and holding it there for a moment, before gently sliding out and then in again. “I want to fuck your whole body with my whole body, your whole mind with my whole mind, your whole heart with my whole heart.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Beatrice can’t make words anymore. Articulate Ava is more than she can handle. Her fingers move faster, stroking Ava in tight little circles. “I’m close,” she sighs. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good, me too.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shine with me,” Beatrice whispers again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Ava answers. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s not magic, what happens between them. It’s chemistry. It’s a million little parts that lock into place exactly as they’re designed to do, in the genius of engineering, the molecular need that they have for one another completing itself, in real time, in a burst of chemical responses that draw them to each other. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They come within seconds of each other, kissing deep and moaning into each other’s mouths. When the touching becomes too much, they tangle their legs together and lie face to face, holding each other, stroking each other’s faces, kissing softly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m gonna kiss every inch of you before the night is over,” Ava says, and she means it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you?” Beatrice challenges playfully. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mm.” Ava trails her fingers up and down Beatrice’s back. “Your neck, the small of your back, your Achilles tendon, your collarbones. Every bit. I’m gonna make you close your eyes and kiss your closed eyelids.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s going to take some time,” Beatrice teases. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not in a rush, are you?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hm, I suppose not.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They close their eyes for a moment and lay this way. Now is not the time to talk about their future, if there indeed is one. The big, heavy words have amplified everything there ever was between them, though, and it will need to happen soon. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Beatrice sighs. “There’s one thing I’d like before we do that.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s that?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want you to give me more.” </span>
</p>
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